365//365: Day 147 – Star Wars: Rogue Squadron (N64) [PP]

05.27.2010

The 16 and 64 bit eras of Star Wars gaming has been very kind to the franchise. The Super Star Wars trilogy was one of the best movie licensed trifecas in recent memory, and the Nintendo 64 Star Wars titles were, for the most part, another batch of great gaming. Star Wars: Rogue Squadron is one of those titles. Consisting of only flight based missions through a myriad of vehicles, Rogue Squadron was your one stop console source of flight based Star Wars excitement. As with the Super Nintendo Star Wars titles, Rogue Squadron relies solely on MIDI compositions of John Williams’ world famous musical scores. Thankfully, combined with the quality of the sound effects present, as well as the numerous vocal cues throughout, the audio presentation is top notch for a cartridge based Star Wars title. The graphics are top notch as well, with fluent animations throughout the plethora of stages and ships you get to pilot throughout them. The controls were tight, and you never feel like you have to struggle to circle an AT-AT walker while running a cable around its legs to take it down. Probably the only shortcoming to this experience is the draw distance. While it’s not as restrictive as other titles on the Nintendo 64, you will notice a lot of landscapes just appearing when flying towards them, or slowly dissolving when a certain distance away. Nevertheless, Star Wars: Rogue Squadron can definitely be considered one of the premiere Star Wars titles in existence. With its focus strictly around flight based missions, there’s plenty of different scenarios that you’ll be able to visit, and enjoy.

Without an Expansion Pak, Rogue Squadron look pretty solid. With it installed, the visual leap is quite noticeable.

Jason V.

I am the Co-Editor-in-Chief here at Chocolate Lemon. Over the last 15 years, I have been writing gaming articles here and there, including my time with GameSages, a then IGN affiliated video game code database that's now owned by IGN, as well as my near four year stay on this very site. I'm quite the gaming enthusiast, have a somewhat "old school" soul, and enjoy a wide variety of geeky shows, movies and so on. Follow me on Twitter @Jas0nVelez